The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventor, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present disclosure and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
When user equipment (“UE”) transitions from an idle mode to a connected mode, such as from RRC_IDLE to RRC_CONNECTED pursuant to the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (“LTE”) Release 10 (March 2011) (the “LTE Standard”) and beyond, the UE may select and join one of a plurality of detected cells based on frequency priorities associated with the cells. For instance, the LTE standard dictates that the UE may select and join the cell in the highest priority frequency. When two detected cells are in the highest priority frequency, the LTE standard dictates that the UE select and join the cell having the best channel condition (e.g., as indicated by SrxlevnonServingCell,x). However, when a large number of UEs at or near a particular geographic location transition from idle to connected contemporaneously (e.g., after an event such as a movie or play), those UEs may all join the same cell. In such case, that cell may become overloaded.